The hills are alive with the sound of...

Working on the synopsis today — Eru bless the three-day vacation — but I have a random thought that’s been drifting about my wee brain and distracting the hamsters that run the little wheels up there. Where better to offload that randomness so I can buckle down and get to work?

I was thinking the other day about some of my favorite words and why I like them, and I started thinking about words that give me a visceral reaction and what about them makes me react that way. Like everyone, I have words I love and hate for varying reasons. But for some words, it’s the sound of the word that’s the cause of my strong reaction. In some cases, those are the best words because they’re so evocative and I love using them. Other words I hate the sound of so much that I’ll avoid using them if I can.

My strongest reaction-related word is “vulpine”. I have a love/hate relationship with that word. Love it, because it’s so deliciously descriptive and evil. (When describing people, obviously, not when describing foxes.) It’s such a wonderfully evil word that I reserve it for the really special occasions. You don’t even have to know what it means to be skeeved out by it. Just the sound of it makes a cold shiver run down my spine. When I think “vulpine”, I have a vision of a sharp, angular face, half-hidden in shadow, perhaps at the back of a poorly lit room. A half-smile that hints at unspoken horrors. Eyes bright and predatory. Maybe yellow or red, because those are my own personal squicks, or maybe solid black.

I first came across it in a description of a vampire-like character in a horror story when I was about 11, and I didn’t even have to look it up to immediately conjure a picture. It’s no coincidence, I’m sure, that it’s a vampire-ish image I associate with the word, but listen to the sound of it: the seductive, almost sensual nature of that first syllable, the undercurrent of danger, the similar sound to “voluptuous”; the abrupt edge of the second syllable, not a hard edge like a “k” sound would be, but rounded a bit, like a well-used blade that still cuts as fine as it did the first time. You hear the word “vulpine”, you run, run, run in the opposite direction because things are not going to end well for you otherwise.

Then there are the words whose sounds I detest so much that I avoid using them as much as possible. I don’t like the word “pregnant”* for that reason. It’s that “gn” sound that puts me off, like the sound you make in your throat when you’re trying not to hurl. Not a particularly charming sound, and other than the morning sickness, incongruous with the actual definition of the word. I mean, there’s a reason “malignant” sounds just like what it is, and yet that same “gn” combination is the identifying characteristic of “pregnant”. Heck, that whole “gnant” — so gutteral and back-of-the-throat — is completely repugnant.

I have others. In both categories. Squib. Babe. Guffaw. Puce. Most studies of loved and hated words list “moist” as the most oft-hated word, but “moist” doesn’t bother me. How about you?

*(Unfortunately, the alternatives aren’t any better. “Expecting”? It’s a baby, not a dinner party. “With child”? How very King James version. “In a family way”? Ugh, spoken by people who aren’t able to even whisper the word “sex”. “Preggers”? Barf. “Gestating”? Sounds like you’re hatching an egg. That, or an alien that’s going to pop out of your chest in the middle of dinner. No thanks.)